Wings are made to fly
by GraceEliz
Summary: Everyone has wings, and obviously this makes for interesting events in the lives of many many people. Except Superman. He hasn't got wings. A response to the 'wings' prompt. Drabbles featuring the whole batfamily. Angst, fluff, hurt, comfort. See inside for more detailed information.


_The key benefit of AO3 to this site is the tagging system. This fic is written in drabbles, which means that I cant fit the trigger warnings into the summary. If you wish to completely avoid spoilers feell free to skip the trigger warnings below, but better safe than sorry. I bawled my eyes out writing this. Lots of fluff, lots of angst. _

_Triggers include:_

_-child death (Jason) _

_-build-up to angst _

_-infant illness_

_-Ra's Al Ghul _

_-Jason's death from Bruce's pov_

_-Talia/Bruce break-up resulting in Bruce having a breakdown _

The first time Bruce ever tried to fly is also his earliest memory, he thinks. Aged 4, young Bruce had leapt off his wardrobe aiming for his bed two meters away, and had slammed into the hard wood floor of his new bedroom as heavily as if he had no wings at all. The impact bruised his right wing, discolouring the soft baby scales from gentle blonde to ugly blue-purple bruises, leaving him in tears. Why hadn't he flown? Surely his wings were strong enough to glide, now. He was four – not a little baby! "Mani? Mani, I want mummy. Please get my mummy," he begged the house, trying not to burst into tears where he was sat on the floor.

"Bruce!" his mother exclaimed, "What happened, baby? Let me see." Bruce's baby wings were barely a quarter the size of hers, still soft, the scales not hard enough to survive impact like that of jumping off the goddamned wardrobe onto hardwood floor. He whimpered slightly under her careful probing, the scales flushing ugly brown-purple under the pressure. Nothing broken, no cracked scales, just a nasty bruise. Martha cuddled him in close, wrapping her wings around them in a safe cocoon. Bruce's hair was still so baby-soft under her cheek, smelling of baby shampoo (Alfred approved) and fluffy like down. "Oh, baby," she crooned, "you can't fly yet, not with baby scales. I think you should thank the house for making the floor soft for you, yes?"

"Thank you, house," Bruce chorused, leaning down to pat the floor affectionately. He smiled up at his mother, stretching to trace the line of bright gold scales on her fire-red wings enviously. It looked like he'd inherit his father's black wings rather than the auburn shades of his mother's family, which he was a little angry about really. "I want red wings, Mummy, like you," he pouted, "Not boring blonde."

"Lots of people would love to have wings like yours, Bruce baby," Martha said, "but you're not done growing yet." Her eyes crinkled with a smile. "Let's go let Alfie spoil you for a bit. You get to tell your Dad what happened," she teased, laughing at Bruce's groan. Her baby was still so tiny, enough that she could toss him into the air and catch him again. Bruce's laughter echoed in the Manor, and the house felt like it preened in contentment.

"Dadaaaaaa! Dadaaaaaaaaa!" The baby screamed out, voice echoing in the stone walls and out across desert sands. His mother huffed, slapping her book onto her lap. Why did he scream for his father? He'd never met him, only had Talia's bedtime stories to go off when forming this attachment. The child could barely sit up, had only the barest bumps of wings, his hair still no more than soft wisps the same shade as his father's and his eyes still lingering baby blueish green. He had no cause to call out for his father.

(The fact his father would kill to reach him meant nothing, nothing.)

She stood, leaning over the bassinet. "Hush, son," she soothed, "are your wings itching? Is that what it is, little one? They do ache, don't they. I know." The desert night sky stretched out before them, an endless silver sand sea, the latticework of the window casting beautiful shadows into the room. Above the stars glinted like only they could, the Milky Way a bright bright curve overhead. What words could describe the beauty of space? She pressed her cheek against her son's. "Look out there, my heart, and see the stars. You will walk them, son, walk them and win them."

The weight of greatness is painful to grow into.

"Bruuuuuuuuuuce! Look, my adult wings are coming!" Bruce startled out of his doze, immediately on the alert. Please, he prayed, don't be something we can't hide for patrol, please please please –

"They're blue," crowed Dick as he hurtled into Bruce's lap. He leant back so he could stretch them out full-span, a typical 15-year-old teenager's mix of baby scales, adult scales, and raw red patches wrapped in dark bandages. True to Dick's claim, his eldest son (because there should be the baby too, his heart breathed, three sons, this one and his toddler and his baby) was growing in scales in two shades of midnight, an almost camouflage pattern. That'd be useful on patrol.

"I'm gonna paint bright colours like mom's onto them for daytime," he chattered, "and for night-time I'm gonna be like you and cover them in ash to make them black!" Dick's face was alight with the joy of planning and imagining, but all Bruce could see was that his baby would be born now, and developing wing bumps, and maybe even crying because of the pain-

"Bruce? Are you thinking about your baby again?"

"Yeah. Sorry lad, I was just – he'd be moulting."

Dick's mouth twisted. "Only you weird British people say moulted for a baby's first wings. Everyone in America says that they're coming through. In the circus we called it sprouting. Yanno, the wings sprout. Like plants!" he said, eyes searching Bruce's, happiness slowly sliding away. "Aw Brucester," he tucked himself into Bruce, "it's okay. You can be sad. I'll still be here. We can go get Timmy from school and have ice cream."

"Yeah," choked Bruce, "that sounds nice."

Nightwing paints blue stripes onto his wings, rubs ashes into the rest. Tries not to think of home and Bruce. Doesn't think about the boy who replaced him (and then died). Doesn't think about the new Robin, Timmy, the one who'd been almost like a little brother all that time ago. He especially doesn't think about how cracked Bruce is all the time, how the lines in Bruce's eyes scream heartbreak or how his wings don't fly anymore. Doesn't think about Babs, whose wings look they should fly, but they don't, because she can hardly move them. Doesn't think about the rolls upon rolls of bandages in bags and bags in the hall ready to take to Gotham. Doesn't consider who has to be the one to wrap Bruce's wings so he doesn't break them (doesn't think about Bruce doing that himself). Doesn't think about the house and its presence and how natural it had got over the years to react to a sentient home, and tries not to miss the Manor too much in this flat that isn't alive.

Nightwing rubs ash in long sweeps over his wings and thinks about the wind in his hair and the strain of gliding in a breeze.

"Careful, my wings have had a little too much damage," warns Bruce when Jason primes himself to leap. The boy falters in surprise like a bird who missed the takeoff.

"What?"

"My wings. They're too damaged to hold up to that kind of impact," states Bruce without looking up from his paper. The boy at his side reaches up to pat his shoulder in sympathy, mimicking the stoicism and continuing to read his cereal box. Jason shakes his head to clear whatever shock is clouding it and slides into his seat on Bruce's left, which the house stops from falling over. How weird is that? The house is alive. He knows that for sure because he got lost yesterday and opened a door into Bruce's study, which was definitely not in the part of the house he got lost in. Freaky house.

"So, read anything good?" Bruce asks him. They haven't seen each other in a few days, what with Jason having projects and Bruce having the hospital appointments and Timmy's mom and dad being home, so Jason's got plenty of literary analysis stored up. But first, the important stuff. He turns to Timmy.

"Hey, Timster, what'd Bruce's Doc say?"

"Bruce's wings are badly damaged and too much strain will break them. If they break again he'll lose all use of them."

Jason stills in horror. Sure, people have wing disease, and Superman doesn't wings at all, and stuff, but this is Very Not Good. And – "Who's telling the dickhead?"

"Nobody," snaps Bruce before Timmy has even opened his mouth, "Nobody tells Dick about this. It would upset him too much. Also, don't insult your brother like that."

Jason snorts. Brother? Timmy was more of a brother than the dickwad and he wasn't legally tied to this family at all, other than Bruce having a preference as his carer in Janet (may she be haunted when she dies) Drake's will. Dick hasn't been home in months and he certainly doesn't come for Jason. More insultingly than that he only ever shouts at Bruce when he shows his face. Can't he see Bruce was hurt by that? Why is he so very stupid? And that suit – he's a total disgrace. Jason decides to keep quietly seething, on Bruce's behalf because Bruce obviously only ever seethes at villains and stuff, until Alfred comes to start breakfast. Maybe the house will let him take some more books out of the library. He does already have ten, but he took one back, so there shouldn't be a rerun of last week when the Manor locked him in the library for trying to take more.

"When are my wings going to grow into adult ones?" moaned Tim, "I want to know if I'm auburn and blonde like you." His little hands traced the patterns on his Dada's wings – almost like a snake's, he thought. Tim wanted to look like Dada when he was older, or maybe Grannie Wayne. There was a really big painting of her in one of the galleries the house had showed him, and she had really pretty wings. When the setting sun had lit the painting they looked like fire. He listened to his Dada laughing.

"You're only a baby, Timmy," he soothed, "but maybe you'll get your Mama's wings?"

Tim wrinkled his nose. Mama was very pretty but she didn't come very often so he lived with Dada, and he didn't want her grey wings. They were nice but not shiny silver like some wings, and not even an interesting grey like Alfie's, and definitely not a nice black and blue like Dick's. He'd definitely rather have his Dada's wings though. Everyone envied (that was a good word. Alfie taught him it. It meant people wanted his Dada's wings very much) his Dada and maybe if they both had the same wings nobody would take him away. "My Mama and Dad are away for more weeks?"

"Yeah, why, Timmy? Do you miss them?"

Tim shrugged. "No," he said as he kept stroking Dada's wings to stop them hurting from the bruises the bad men left yesterday, "I don't want to go back there. If I look like you everyone will let me stay."

Bruce rolled over, setting his toddler onto his stomach, wings a protective fiery arch over them. "Timmy, I will fight for you if you need me." Timmy's smile lit up the whole world. Bruce grinned up at him.

"You should have fucking told me!"

"Richard John Grayson Wayne do not swear in that manner-"

"We're not in the fucking house, Bruce, you can't tell me what to do," spat Dick, ignoring Bruce's flinch. "You didn't think I deserved to know? Why would you even keep this from me?"

Bruce sighed. He'd avoided this argument for so long now, but he wasn't going to be moving anytime soon, not with a broken back. Looked like it was happening here. "You would have been upset."

"I still deserved to know! Do you know what Timmy told me? He told me you haven't flown since before Jason died." Ignore Bruce's flinch, ignore it, get this out. "He said you wings are shattered," hissed Dick. Bruce, on the bed, limp and pale and drawn and weak in ways Bruce should never be, closed his eyes. Tears clouded Dick's as his chest shuddered, hands shaking in anger and sorrow and, underlying all the mess, fear. Dada couldn't fly. Dada was grounded. The tears wouldn't stop in his eyes, a sob escaping from the knot of pain deep inside. Bruce's eyes snapped open.

"Oh, Dickie, sweetheart, come here love," croaked Bruce, reaching out with his good (not good, only better, but not good) arm, "come to Dada baby."

"Bat!"

"Well done, son."

"Dada!"

Talia heaved a sigh. Toddlers, they had so many ridiculous ideas. Why on earth was Damian still harping on for his Dada? Her beloved was not called Dada in the stories she told, nobody else was around to tell stories about Bruce – only the Pit-child and he had no memories yet – or about the boys he called his sons. Perhaps his training would get that out of him, it was so utterly common to call for Dada after a nightmare...

Damian chased the bats swooping through the air, flapping his little wings. His Dada could fly like a bat. He had other babies too. They got snuggles and kisses and had Dada to tuck them to bed. Damian was even willing to share his Dada sometimes if it meant he got snuggles. His mother said she was going to see Dada soon and he was staying with the Pit-child. He had wings like his mother's. The Pit-child spoke the same words his Dada did on the television, maybe he knew stories about his Dada. "Oh no," sighed Damian when a little bat flew into the wall. He toddled over to it and sat down in the sand. The sand was nice and warm on his scales. The bat was very small. Maybe it was a baby like he used to be. "Do you want me to help you find your Dada?" asked Damian as he picked up the bat, "Come on. Mother will help."

This habit of collecting strays came from his father, thought Talia unamused as she watched the proceedings, and it looked like he'd get his father's fiery wings too. It would of course need to stop – but it could wait until after she infiltrated the Manor. She would not be stopped by the bloody semi-sentient house! Her beloved would have to answer for why he still had the circus brat and the littlest one, and for the other one he'd picked up and lost and who was currently watching Damian with the bat.

"Mother, the baby has lost his Dada," chirped Damian. Talia smiled at him – darling child like Timmy, crooned her heart before her head brushed it away – and crouched down.

"Lost his Father? What shall we do?"

"Up," pointed Damian at the roof, "Put him in his house." Well, with that sort of expectation, of course she would put the bat back in its home. She stretched out her milk-white wings (weren't they raven, once? Like her hair?) and flew.

Bruce frowned at the boy stood at the bus stop outside of the theatre. He didn't have wings, at all. He looked a few years younger than him, maybe 11, and he absolutely had no wings. At all. Maybe he could go and make sure he was okay?

Clark squinted warily as the older boy purposefully crossed the street to him. The boy's wings were a very uncommon blonde and auburn mix, streaked in the manner celebrities paid a fortune for, not the same dark as his hair. Most people had some kind of link between their hair and their wings, but this boy? Beautiful.

"Hi," he said, "I'm Bruce Wayne, from Gotham." A rich kid, that could be problematic. Clark shuffled back a few steps. "I see you have – no wings. I'd like to help you, if you need it. I'm setting up a society to build homes – care centres, respite, therapy – for people with wing disabilities." After a few moments of expectant silence, Clark realised that Bruce Wayne was expecting an answer.

"Well, I, uh – my birth mom died of wing cancer, and the doctors had to take mine off when I was, like, two. I don't need anything, not for that, but I want to help," and that wasn't exactly what Clark had intended to say. Something about this boy drew his inner thoughts out of the locked cage in his heart, the one full of his parents' warnings to be careful about talking about his wings to strangers. The older boy grinned sharp-as-blades.

"Here's my card. Get in touch, when you have any ideas. Where can I look you up?"

Clark flashed his eyes up to the boy's from the glossy card he'd been given. He thought about the start of the second Tarzan book, when his card read 'J. C. T' or whatever it was. He had the bizarre thought of one of them being hurled off a boat, the other left to wonder about it. Bruce's blue eyes glinted against his dark hair and gold-red wings.

"Kent. Clark Kent, Smallville."

"Hello, Mr and Mrs Drake," Bruce greeted his neighbours as he stepped into their ballroom, "You look very well, Janet." Janet smiled at Bruce's familiarity.

"I know you said we could hold this at yours, but the Manor, well," Janet trailed off. She had no need to finish the thought, wings held protectively around the tiny baby in her arms. The Manor disliked Janet for the time she drank a little too much several years ago and threw up over a bookshelf in the library; and the Manor could certainly hold a grudge. Janet had been locked in the washroom for hours last time she visited. Bruce smiled – there were no hard feelings about the grudges the Manor took out on guests. They'd known each other far too long for that (Janet had, in fact, held his and Harvey's hair out of the toilet on multiple occasions in their youths, back when she was still a Coutier).

"Oh, here," said Janet as she passed the baby over, "Hold his head up – yeah, perfect. You're a natural at this, B." The baby was so tiny in his rough hands, so precious, so warm, that Bruce found he'd unconsciously tucked his large fiery wings around them three. He'd never felt so immediately protective of a human being before. He locked eyes with Janet.

"Anything happens to you, he's mine."

Janet smiled slowly, devilish, exactly as she always had. "Excellent," she responded, "because that's exactly the plan." She cast her eyes down to the stirring baby, tracing her fingers over his wispy hair. "Promise me you'll take him away if I'm a bad mother?"

"Yeah," he whispered, "I will."

Bright blue eyes – brighter than his – blinked wide awake, meeting his, and Bruce would swear down he was shot in the chest because that ache, spear of something, surely couldn't be his own deadened heart in his constricted chest. The baby smiled, gums and tongue, and God, Bruce is head over heels heart over the wall out of his mind but he loves this baby suddenly with all his strength in every bit of his heart.

"I named him Timothy."

"Tim," breathes Bruce, "My Timmy."

"Heya B, whatchya up to?"

Jason bounced into the study, putting his bags in the corner he'd designated for his school supplies. He tipped his head over Bruce's arm to look over the document. His nose wrinkled.

"I didn't know you worked in that many countries."

"Clark Kent helped me set this up, you know. We were thirteen and fifteen," mused Bruce, "It seems like forever ago."

Jason nodded. His wings were slowly healing from the damage they'd suffered over the years of malnutrition and abuse, raw red patches now only a sensitive pink and thin scales growing in on the bare skin along his bones. The flexible areas of tiny scales were far less irritated now that he was getting treatment for the myriad of deficiencies he'd had. He stood back to look at Bruce's wings again. They were something he never tired of. Cream and gold and copper tracing together like fire, like fantasy flames in this light, protective and strong and oh so very beautiful. Jason's own wings were sickly, a washed out shade of grey he thought. His mom's wings had been shrivelled by drugs and washed sick grey by malnutrition. Thirteen years, and Jason had never worked out what colour his wings were supposed to be.

"Your adult wings will be fine. Wait for them. A few years of itching and bandages and you're good."

Jason rolled his eyes. Adult wings were finished at 16 or 17. That was, like, forever away. He padded over to his second-favourite chair, the one with the faded blue velvet, to snuggle into the fleece with his book. Bruce had shown him how to play the records of play readings on the new record player so he was reading along to The Winter's Tale. The peace rippled and bubbled around them like a spring on a warm day.

"I could die before my wings-"

"Oh I think not," interrupted Bruce, "I very much think not. I will keep you safe. We'll find out what your wings look like." Jason met Bruce's stern blue eyes with a wide smile, the lights flicking in support of his claim. The Manor tipped his chair forward so he stumbled to his feet; he took the hint and cambered up beside Bruce. It felt so safe, tucked into Bruce's side under the fiery wings like this, close enough to tip his head up and trace the scales like Timmy loved to do. Nothing would hurt him under these wings.

The baby floated in the machine – an artificial womb. He was so very tiny, the size of her beloveds hand, a tiny head and tiny limbs and when the light was right she could even see his fingernails. A human, the size of her two fists together. If she moves to the other side of the machine she'll be able to see the tiny marks which will be his wings.

Why the hell did she permit this? Between the two of them they could have found a way, they could find doctors to cure their son, they could have-

"My daughter, this is the only way," murmured Father, "His illness is not one we can cure yet."

"You will fix him," Talia states monotonously, "You will fix my baby and return us to Bruce. I will not permit my son to grow up here. You will not use Pit water on him." She refuses to let her son be twisted by the waters of the Lazarus Pit, as she fears she will be twisted before they find a cure. There are fixes for more and more genetic illnesses these days, the League has the power to create what is necessary.

She will name him Damian. That is the name his Dada chose, and none of her father's posturing will change her mind on this matter.

Several months later, her last thought is about her son in his machine and that her beloved will now never know why she left him, because she was too much a coward to let him in.

Her first sight is green. Her first thought is fog and mist, and under all that is the need to obey her father, and somewhere below that is the knowledge that she is missing someone vitally important.

Her son is raised an assassin, after he is finally fixed and brought to birth.

Timmy wriggled around in the nest of Jason's blankets, smiling up his gap-toothed devil's grin, undisturbed by Jason's crossed arms and narrowed eyes. It made sense, when Jason considered it, because this boy was very much Bruce's baby (not an orphan, legally he was still his parents', but Bruce didn't actually care about laws) and Bruce had never hurt a child in his life. Tim's ever-growing wings sprawled pale blonde over bright red quilt Jason had chosen out of the 'linen cupboard' and for the life of him Jason could not send the kid away. He was nine, just gone, and such a bright thing – always on the Manor's good side, polite and sweet but slightly obsessive and definitely possessive of Bruce.

Jason had bitemarks to prove that. Apparently Dickhead did too.

Thankfully, Timmy wasn't throwing hissy fits so often now that he'd been assured his wings may well grow in to mimic Bruce's. He'd surprised Jason too many times now to shock him with his insights.

"Oh, what a lovely comfortable bed I have," said Jason as dramatically as he knew how, "I think I'll just – fall onto it!" He trapped Timmy in his arms, watchful of their wings, and pulled the boy onto his chest to attack him with kisses. "This is my favourite teddy! Yes, it definitely is, maybe I'll go show Bruce too." Timmy squealed in glee when Jason tossed him into the air as if he weighed no more than a toddler. They were close in age and size, but Jason felt much older than 12, and that made Timmy act like a child in response. Timmy loved to ask the Manor for a secret, close his eyes, and open doors. It struck Jason as a very dangerous game and he felt sure the house approved of his supervision. Of course, if it was actually harmful the Manor wouldn't play. It was a comfort, knowing the floor could be solid marble but still feel like a plush rug when they fell from wherever they were taking daring dives from. He wondered, as Timmy snuggled down into his chest, how long it would be until he started calling Bruce Dada too, how long until he and Tim joined forces against prospective girlfriends, and just how long it would take for him to start being properly cool like Dick or Aunty Diana. He'd settle for Bruce cool if he had to.

Talia tucked neatly under Bruce's chin, hair tickling the skin of his shoulder bared by his robes. A soft waltz floated through the dimming twilight out of the ballroom into the gardens, out over Bruce's favourite cream roses. The weight of her against his chest soothed every jagged uproar of his soul, the pulse of panic caused by the news of her pregnancy, the scream in the back of his brain that this couldn't last because he had one perfect thing already, and he would give up anything to save his baby. Here, now, under a twilight sky waltzing to his favourite tune with his fiancée in his arms, everything was perfect. For one blessed night, his family was perfect.

"You are happy, beloved."

He smiled into her raven hair. "Ecstatic, my heart," he answered, "You – are everything to me." Talia muffled her smile in his chest, but he felt her glee. This moment belonged to them, cocooned in fire and night, stars twinkling above, rare English roses scenting the air, the fountains audible under the violins.

"And fuck you! Fuck it all! I want none of this anymore," snarled Talia, accent strong in fury. The Manor shivered in anger or grief under Bruce's hand. The room was spinning. He was spinning. She was leaving. Wings flared, emerald eyes bright. Suitcase at her feet.

A silhouette against the bright sun.

He tried to force his lips to move. It had been harder, since she sent the unborn baby to Ra's to grow in a machine, to talk. He struggled to talk to either of the kids, especially Dick who needed him so much. Timmy was a weight in his arm, not quite an anchor. He was braced between his son and his home watching the love of his life spit at him.

She twisted the bright emerald off her finger, held it up so it sparkled. Bright as her eyes.

"I'm going. You know where to find me."

The ring bounced on the marble tile.

She left the doors open.

The purple roses were in bloom, he'd win prizes for them this summer. It was starting to drizzle.

"Clark."

There was a swish of wind, and he was face-to-face with his best friend, his brother, the alien born without wings. He held Timmy out, felt his tiny weight leave his arms. Something moved, the room swinging hard to the left.

The marble was cold under his cheek, pattern blurred by tears. He was lying on his bad wing. It didn't matter. They were both gone. The emerald glittered like a broken promise on the other side of the atrium. The scream built and built and built until no lethargy could hold it back and Bruce opened his mouth and curled into himself and screamed screamed screamed

Dick curled into the void of his chest, Timmy laid carefully into Dick's arms to cradle between them. Clark's hand was warm and heavy and safe on his shoulder. It took too long too long to stop the keening echoing up from the void abyss chasm in his stomach

Timmy's baby wings were pale blonde over Dick's midnight scales.

Laughter filled the air, drowning out the fountains and sizzling barbecue. Cass swept on dark wings over the pool, hurling ice cubes at her brothers below. The youngest two squealed in outrage, still so young and wonderful, dusk and night. That's what they were, his son from the dusky desert with tan skin and the boy he welcomed into his heart from the night streets who grew up with Batman sweeping the skylines. Matt was here too, somewhere in the throng of children. They filled his heart, these kids, filled him full of joy in life. Wings flicked and slapped in air and water in the mass water fight.

Shaking his head fondly at their antics, Bruce turned back to the burgers. There'd be hell to pay if they burned; junk food wasn't common in this house. Both the Manor and Alfred got very judgy about the diets of those associated with the Wayne name, and oddly that extended to Clark, Diana and Barry but not Hal or the rest of the JL. Despite all attempts, nobody had worked out what the deciding factors were. Clark asserted it was because Barry was young and Bruce's Dadstincts went into overdrive. There were no better ideas.

"Bruce? Can I talk to you?"

"Sure, Steph," he replied. She'd snuck up on him, bright yellow wings hidden under summer dust thrown up by whatever fight was going on in his herb garden. "You know you guys can talk to me. I'm not guaranteed to talk back, but I'm here."

She nodded slowly, settling onto his stool. All he had to do was wait, and be calm, and the words would spill like water from a dam or pus from a wound. That's the secret to children and family: a steel jaw and silence.

"I'm 19 and I want out."

"Out of what."

"Out! Out of Gotham, out of the hero life, just out. Not out of the family, just –" she struggled for words, wings jerking in agitation "- The city is closing in on me. I feel so constrained no matter how high I fly or how far, I always feel trapped by the suit and by people's expectations. I don't want to stop helping people," she continued earnestly, "but I need out. Maybe I could go to Metropolis but I think I'd feel it still. So I thought, I'll ask B, and maybe go to England?"

Bruce was quiet as he flipped the burgers, not to let her stew but to pull the words out of himself. "It's a good thought."

"Really?"

"Don't sound shocked. As long as it isn't off the grid, drink, drugs, or a significant other, you're good." It wasn't like Bruce could criticise wanting to leave. He'd left for years for his training. Steph was a good girl, she wouldn't wind up with wing tattoos or problematic piercings or god forbid revealing herself as spoiler. "I have one question," he stated turning to look at her, "Who gets your purple wing paint and glitter pack?"

Steph collapsed into laughing tears, half sobbing into his chest. He had the most precious children Bruce knew, the absolute best. "Go throw Damian at Jason for me?" He was met with a wild grin that matched Tim's for devilish mischief. A kiss to his scarred cheek, and his golden girl flung herself through the air to pull Damian out of the pool. Damian, miracle child, who was born in 2002 but really only in 2009, who had been born to die but lived anyway. His baby who was still a baby, who should be 12 but is only six. Jason catches him and Damian's high squeals banish all his concerns for Steph. They will all be well. Life is good, the sun shines.

Ash in the air in his lungs in his eyes ears throat nose. Ringing – hearing knocked out by the blast. Suspected broken right wing, fractured shoulder, at least two broken ribs, numerous surface injuries. Jason. Where is Jason.

There. Green and red.

Bricks under his feet like bones of the dead. A body, a woman, thrown into one of three remaining structures like a rag doll. The mother? Likely. Dead on explosion. DNA samples to be collected later.

Jason. No, body. Not a body never that. Soft curls congealed with blood and dirt, skin flaked with stains, uniform in tatters. Soiled. Abused. Broken. Still so small, barely bigger than Timmy. And his wings – oh god his wings, gone, that creature masquerading as a man had stolen his third (second by age) son's wings he will kill him he's going to tear him apart for what he has done.

There's a cut through one of Jason's ginger eyebrows, tracing from way up in his scalp down his neck. Bruce settles his son into his lap against his chest so he has his hands free for first aid. Cut first. Butterfly plasters (bandaid Bruce call it a bandaid say his kids in his head) to hold the skin close – it won't scar so badly. Next his lip, two paper stitches.

Jason's arms are lacerated all over so he draws out the antiseptic bandages. Says nothing, wraps slow and careful, peeling back damaged suit as he goes, wiping away ashes with a rapidly dirtying cloth. The fabric needs trimmed for wrapping his small fingers, crooked and torn. It takes only eight. Bruce doesn't think.

His yellow cape is twisted around his boots, so Bruce untangles it and smooths it out so he can wrap Jay in it to carry him to the jet. His broken wing hangs limp and useless, his left wing agonisingly held high against the sun. Nothing will hurt Jason under his wings. Fire flashes everywhere in tiny bursts and the occasional small burst of a pipe. Jason is almost done now, ready to be hefted back to the jet to fly home.

He weighs too little without his wings.

Bruce thinks his wings are going to be chocolatey brown. They can rub ash into them for patrol, they'll match his and Dick's. Timmy's have grown in auburn, similar to Bruce's, and it would have been good to have sons who almost matched. Jason adores Timmy, he'll be pleased. Rubble crunches underfoot. The woman – he'll leave her. She isn't important. Robin requires medical attention.

"Clark. Help me."

A boom, hard wind. Bruce doesn't stumble.

"Oh, my god..."

Strong arms around them, back to the jet. Miracle soft hands helping him clean Jason. Silence. His own hands, stained, holding the tiny bandaged ones. Red Cape around his shoulders. Protection. Bruce lies his head on the bed. He is grey inside. Where is his baby, where is Timmy?

"Just hold on a bit longer, love, we're almost home. Just a bit longer Bruce."

He knows Clark is crying.


End file.
